


O, Sweet Simple Child

by mangneov



Category: No Straight Roads (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Exploring the potential mental tolls on prodigal children, Gen, Grief/Mourning, headcanons galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:01:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28472790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangneov/pseuds/mangneov
Summary: Yinu grows up, and she gains and she loses. She mostly loses.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 53





	O, Sweet Simple Child

Yinu Zoloto is six years old. 

Her last name is the one she has trouble spelling. It comes from her papa. 

Her papa sits at his desk, and Yinu sits on his lap, and both of them trace 'Z's and 'O's on a sheet of paper. She finally perfects her 'T's. Her papa puts a purple and orange sticker beneath the row. It makes her happy.

Her first name is much easier, but the 'Y' can be tricky sometimes. Her papa writes his first name too, in front of one of his many, perfect 'Zoloto's. The 'M' is her favorite part. She wishes she had an 'M' in her name too.

There are 'M's in her sheet music, a little lowercase one that is sometimes before an 'F' or a 'P'. 'Mezzo'. Medium. Midway. A bit loud, or a bit quiet.

Papa plays Arabesque No. 1 on the piano. Yinu sits beside him on the orange-gold stool with the purple cushion. He plays the beginning of the piece in mezzo piano; little 'M', little 'P'. Papa loves to play the pieces from the big yellow book. It's bound by a plastic whorl that he loses his pencils down sometimes. They'll clatter to the floor, _forte_ , and if she is standing nearby the noise will make her jump. Papa will pick up the pencil, smile softly, and place it safely behind his ear.

She can write 'arabesque' better than she can write 'Zoloto'.

There is an order of words in her mind.

'Natura' is easier than 'arabesque', which is easier than 'astronaut'. Easier than 'Natura' is 'yellow', but 'orange' is harder. 'Papa' and 'mama' are the easiest words, easier than 'pyramid' and 'purple' and 'concert' and 'Akusuka'.

Her parents are in charge of all of Natura, and Mr. Bee is in charge of all of Akusuka. He wears a brown hat. It rests low on his head, and sometimes he'll place it on Yinu's if she gets cold.

Mr. Bee's real name is not Mr. Bee. His name is harder to say than it is to write. It doesn't have an 'M' in it, but it does have an 'N', which is very close.

Her papa and Mr. Bee both die that year. 

Papa had been sick for a long while, everyone says, like she doesn't already know. They all tell her that he was sick and he was tired. It does not make her happy. She already knows these things. Papa was in bed all the time. Papa almost never played the piano. Papa slept and slept and slept, and his hair stuck to his forehead and his cheeks.

Mr. Bee was not sick, and it does not make sense. People who are not sick don't die. 

Mama comes home one night, and it has been five days since her papa died. Mr. Bee had still been alive then. Yinu had seen him that morning. 

Mama sits in the lounge and cries and cries and cries. Her black dress spills across the seat and is the darkest thing in a room lit by moonlight. Yinu thinks it is a beautiful dress. She wants to tell her mama this, to make her stop crying. Mama has done nothing but cry for the last five days.

The nanny pulls her away from the lounge and back to her bedroom. The skin around her eyes is red. It's the same color of papa's nose, bitten by the cold. There is a photograph of him and his frost bitten nose, and Yinu herself is in the photograph, between his arm and a snow bank.

It makes her smile, memories of that funny picture, and the nanny tucks her into bed.

Her mama allows her a break from lessons, so she plays with toys in her room or the gardens. The soft-beak owl flies from her bed to the moon where papa plays his concertos in a crater. Beneath the lily pond, he composes in a cave filled with bubbles and pearls. Mr. Bee and Mr. J, who has five sons much too old to play with, come to visit, and their coats become the infinite mountain range his voice carries through.

Mama watches, and she smiles. It makes her very, very happy.

Mr. Bee and Mr. J stay for dinner. She listens to them talk about grownup things with mama.

It's not terribly interesting, and she wishes she was eating at a fancy place in Akusuka with papa and mama and Mr. Bee. That's something they do two times a month. Mama marks the days on the calendar in her playroom with raindrop stickers. Yinu likes Akusuka because it is a lot like Natura. It's warm and dark, purple and brown and golden, and the restaurants Mr. Bee takes them to always have chocolate desserts.

She waits every day. 

But papa does not come back, just like everyone said, and then Mr. Bee doesn't either.

  
-:-

  
Yinu Zoloto is seven years old.

The tutor's name is Ms. Marzi. She lives in Dreamfever, and brings a gift. It's a little mechanical butterfly, painted pink. Ms. Marzi helps her put it in the garden, and she says that it's "solar powered". They watch the butterfly, and just as Yinu begins to grow bored its little wings start to flap.

'Solar' is a five letter word that Yinu writes in a notebook. The notebook has a rose garden on it. It's hers, apparently. 

Ms. Marzi asks her what things remind her of the sun, and Yinu says Vivaldi's Summer, and lemon cookies, and her sidewalk-chalk, and papa's yellow hair. Ms. Marzi smiles. She says that Yinu's hair is just as yellow as her papa's. 

Yinu has heard this many times before. 

She says Ms. Marzi's hair reminds her of blackberries. It's a very dark blue-purple. Ms. Marzi laughs, and says 'thank you', and Yinu is not sure why.

When she plays the piano, there is something wrong. Mama sits on the purple and orange stool and coaches her gently, counting one tick, two tick like a metronome. She is looking at the sheet music for a mazurka. She is trying her best to sight read it, but mama is not counting the time correctly. Her third beat comes late in the seventeenth measure and she stops.

Her own performance frustrates her, and she leaves the lounge and goes to her bedroom and stares at the hardwood floors. 

Mama does not come after her.

She brings her to NSR meetings sometimes. Yinu has never liked them, and they're far worse now. Before, she would sit on papa's lap and draw on his notepad. He carried three pens in his pocket: green, red, and orange. By the end of each meeting, she'd have produced pages of green fairies, red birthday cakes, and orange orange groves. When papa was sick, she would nap on the sofa in the corner, surrounded by three notepads and pens in eight colors, and when she'd wake she'd be covered in a coat that smelled like coffee.

Now, Yinu sits in mama's lap and is told to behave and sit still. The notepad is reduced to a single sheet of paper, and the only pen she gets is blue.

Ms. Marzi says that the color blue represents sadness. They watch a movie where a crying toad sings about how sad he is to be blue. Rain drips from his banjo and his felt nose. At the end of it, the rain goes away and the toad becomes yellow, and he sings about how it's okay to feel green and in-between. 

Ms. Marzi has her make a list of what colors represent what feelings. 

The list Yinu makes goes:

Red -> Angry  
Orange -> Fast  
Yellow -> Happy   
Green -> Happy also  
Blue -> Sad  
Purple -> Sleepy  
Pink -> Love

During her lunchtime, Ms. Marzi grades her assignments and Yinu draws in the garden. Orange has been crossed off the list with a blue pen. A smiley face sticker beams up at her.

On the next page, she draws herself with mama and papa. The three of them are eating zefir by the flowering shrubs. They were always perfect when papa made them. Sometimes he would flavor them like strawberries, turning them pink.

She colors it all in yellow.

Towards the end of the year, she is brought to something called a charity ball. It's in Dreamfever, and she'd asked mama if Ms. Marzi would be coming because she lived there, but mama had said "no". 

She gets to wear her new green dress. There are small beads along the bottom of it. Even though Ms. Marzi won't be there, she's excited to show it to everyone.

Most of the night is not very fun. She has to stay with mama, who just talks and talks with a lot of grownups. Even though she looks, she can't see any other kids. A few people like her dress, and a bit later mama sits her down at a round table with a plate of food and a cup of juice. It's sort of like dinner in Akusuka. There's even a chocolate dessert.

Mama tells Mr. DJ to watch her before she leaves. Mr. DJ doesn't talk much, and when he does, he talks a lot. Papa once said he was like a hose of built-up pressure, and they were in the garden, so he'd demonstrated, and Yinu had laughed and screamed and run to dodge the cold burst of water.

She asks Mr. DJ if he knows how to make zefir.

Mr. DJ says "yes, he does". 

She asks him if he'll make her some zefir.

Mr. DJ says "no, he won't".

She asks him again, and again and again and again, and finally he says that he will. 

Mama hands her one after dinner a few days after the very boring charity ball. She tells her that Mr. DJ is upset and he wants an apology, and that she needs to be very grateful that he made these for her anyway. Mama holds up the phone for her and she says she's sorry as many times as she can, and then she says thank you for making them strawberry flavored.

They're not as good as papa's, but his were perfect.

  
-:-

  
Yinu Zoloto is eight years old.

In papa's favorite yellow book is a piece in C sharp major. More of the keys are changed than natural. She practices it every day, after her scales and her lessons and her compositions with mama. Mama sits and watches her sometimes.

Mama had said that she wasn't going to perform anymore. She had asked Yinu if she wanted to instead. 

She had looked sad. 

Yinu said yes.

They drive from Natura to the NSR tower. Akusuka is starting to change. Last year, it had been more pink than purple and more blue than grey. This year, the gold is all but gone. Instead of darkness, there is light _everywhere_. 

Yinu covers her eyes and takes a nap.

When they are inside the tower, mama and Ms. Tatiana talk about things, and mostly about Natura. Yinu sits on her mama's lap and is asked questions she doesn't know how to answer. She tries her best, but Ms. Tatiana never looks any happier. She's never looked very happy. 

Ms. Tatiana tells her that she is going to start playing the piano in public. She will play for rows of people, in giant, cathedral-sized concert halls, and all for the people of Vinyl City.

Yinu does not like the way any of that sounds. She doesn't even know what a cathedral is. But she doesn't say so. 

When they get back in the car, mama wipes away her tears. 

Ms. Marzi shows her a movie about stage fright. After, she asks Yinu to pick her favorite piece she's ever played. Yinu chooses Gymnopédie No. 2. It's not really her favorite, but she remembers a time when Mr. Bee came over and papa played it, and they both said they really liked it. The piece actually makes her very, very sad. 

Ms. Marzi says that her mama will set up a time for Mr. J and Mr. DJ and Ms. Eve to come over to watch her play it. She says it's the cure for stage fright. 

Yinu practices extra hard, just to make sure the cure works. 

When the adults arrive in the lounge to watch her play, she doesn't get the shakes, or knocking knees, or nervous sweats, or jittery teeth like the movie said she might. She plays very well, and the adults clap, and then mama serves dinner and the night goes on.

Mr. J says he's very impressed. 

Ms. Eve says she must practice hard.

Mr. DJ says she looked like a natural.

Yinu says thank you, and then goes to her bedroom to sleep before they even leave.

She and mama arrive home from a meeting one day and Yinu goes straight to the garden. On the way, she grabs her stuffed owl from its nest beside the patio door. Its purple wings are fading and its cream stomach is fraying. Yinu tucks it the neck of her sweater so it can stay warm.

The two of them meander around the gardens. They go from the sandbox to the flowering shrubs, then from the greenhouse to the vegetables, and finally end at the lily pond.

Yinu throws dirt and grass into the inky black water. It's so dark she can't even see it sink. She leans further over the edge, eyes getting closer and closer to the surface for a better look, when suddenly her owl is tumbling out of her sweater and disappearing with a splash. 

She screams and cries and waves her hand frantically through the water for it. The gardner rushes to her side from the greenhouse down the way. He pulls her away from the edge, and dips his rake beneath the surface, dragging it along the bottom forever and ever until the owl is found.

He scoops it out and slips it onto the grass.

Its purple wings are soaked and limp, its cream stomach torn and grey. The poor owl looks like it's been melted.

Yinu cries and cries, and her mama comes to scoop her up and carry her away. She is as gentle as she always is, but Yinu cannot bring herself to stop.

Instead of lessons the next day, Ms. Marzi brings Camou ice cream for the two of them and they sit in the lounge and watch movies with big wolves and talking fireplaces.

One day, mama dresses her in a long coat and pulls her hair back with clips. 

They drive for a long time, longer than the drive to the tower. Mama brushes back her hair, even though it's not in her eyes. Yinu eats a muffin.

They get out of the car at a place that she doesn't remember at first. There are rows and rows of flat rocks with words on them. Many of them are decorated with flowers. If her mama asked, she's sure she could name a lot of them. Mama doesn't ask, but she does remind Yinu of where they are, and so Yinu understands why she wouldn't. 

Papa's rock has so many flowers. It makes her happy. Most of the flowers are yellow, which makes her even happier.

Mama doesn't have any flowers for papa, but she pours a bottle of water along the smooth stone and wipes it clean with a cloth. Yinu and the chauffeur help, and not long after they start, Mr. DJ comes over to join them. He stands and watches, so Yinu walks over to him to say hello. Ms. Tatiana also arrives. She gives Yinu a bouquet of orange and yellow flowers to place with the rest.

When she has them arranged nicely, Ms. Tatiana asks her if she wants to stop by Mr. Bee as well. Yinu says she does, and Ms. Tatiana leads her with a hand pressed against her back.

They find Mr. J there. He's sitting cross legged in front of a rock with only one name. In his lap is a bundle of flowers, and if Ms. Tatiana asked, Yinu could tell her that they were primroses.

When Mr. J hears them, he laughs and says that he's sorry, and leaves before Yinu can ask why. His primroses stand out in the grey pot beside the rock, the gravestone. Mr. Bee doesn't have as many flowers as her papa.

She traces her finger along his name, carved out in stone. The texture is cold and hard.

When she gets home, she pulls out her writing notebook while mama is drawing the curtains downstairs. There's a page in there with a drawing she made of papa and Mr. Bee and herself. They are in a castle on the moon, submerged underwater and singing musical bubbles out into the stars.

Beneath it, she writes:

_Papa and Yinu and Mr. Bernadotte_

Her 'M' comes out perfectly.

  
-:-

  
Yinu Zoloto is nine years old.

Her mama is gently weaving roses into her hair. They are golden in color, matched exactly to the strands holding them in place. Mama readjusts her collar and brushes down the arms of her jacket. She kisses Yinu on top of her head, just above the crown of flowers.

"Good luck, my dear," she says.

Yinu nods, and then she is lead onstage and it's never the same again.

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably one of the most indulgent things I've ever written. A more naive and young pov, vague disjointed structure, and a thick, unforgiving slathering of headcanons. (Headcanons, by the way, that are finally starting to solidify after _six fics_ ).
> 
> This is pretty different from what I usually post, and for that I apologize. If you are following me for End of the Road, don't fret! I haven't abandoned it. Just needed a little hiatus for myself. We will return to your regularly scheduled despressing slash fiction in two weeks tops.
> 
> I've been talking about this idea for awhile though, and I'm glad to have finally written it! I haven't had so much fun and determination in completing a fic in...well, awhile. This was one of my one day projects, a combination of enthusiasm and the need to get this out before the year concluded. 
> 
> Speaking of, take care of yourselves in the new year, yeah? This past one was a fucking mistake by the universe. But these last few months have been my first taste as an author on this site and I have just loved it because of people like you. Your comments and kudos really make it all worth it. So stay healthy, talk to friends, keep writing and reading, and I wish you all happiness in 2021 :)
> 
> Bernadotte's namesake is The Solution by the user Urza.


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